What are your early memories of butterflies?

[Lynn]

What are your early memories of butterflies?
Many people talked of childhood memories of fields full of butterflies, but sadly I have no such tales to tell! Perhaps I was not very observant or maybe they were not very abundant in the part of Derbyshire where I grew up. I do remember the Large Whites around dad's brassica plants & the horrid smell of their caterpillars! My earliest memory of a butterfly was.. I think I would have been about four & dad & I were visiting his brother who lodged in an attic room. I was absolutely captivated by the colours of a dead Small Tortoiseshell butterfly lying on the stairs. And that reminds me my mum always called them Red Admirals!
I remember seeing moths too. I went to Long Row infants’ school in Belper & on wet days a friend & I would shelter in the ladies toilets at The Triangle. In my memory there were always half a dozen largish moths on the wall, no doubt attracted in by the light overnight or possibly hibernating.

[Dave McCormick]

Well, I remember years ago when I was 7, my dad got a new job and moved to the country from the town. I did not know this place or much about country as I grew up in town. I liked this area, and in the summer 1995, I saw my first real butterflies. Small Coppers, Large Whites/Small Whites, Red admirals, peacocks, painted ladys, small tortoiseshells and others.

I remember this place near my house and there was a big bush in it that attracted allsorts to it and there was loads of butterflies everywhere. Some got stuck in this glasshouse a lot and I went and got them out. Sadly, the bush is now gone and the small coppers disappeared from this area, but a few orange-tips have been seen in their place for some reason. (none of their foodplants anywhere nearby)

The person who lived in this area had a moth trap and I remember going out and seeing what moths came to it during summer months. Got some interesting ones like prominents and longhorn moths and others. My mum bought me a book on butterflies "Eyewithess Handbooks: Butterflies and Moths" by David Carter 1995 and I was set to start learning, and thats what I did.

I used to go up this country park not far away with my grandparents alot and see loads of common blues and Six Sport burnet moths, I never fogot seeing those and stil see them today in good numbers.

[Paul]

My first memory was of a few real (but very dead!) butterflies which had been stuck to a mirror in the bedroom I slept in at grandparents in the East Midlands in the mid 60's. I think that's where the fascination started. I hope never to see the same again! My faint & probably twisted memory is that one of them was a Large Tort.
I also remember crying in infant school because the teacher let a peacock out of the classroom... I had myself convinced it was a Camberwell Beauty!.. ( sad )
Just thought I'd share these rather bizzare memories.. I still can't work out how I knew CB's existed... not too accurate on ID's at the time apparently!

[Pete Eeles]

Memories that have stuck with me from a very young age (ah - so many!). I've included moths too

1. Several "woolly bear"s walking down the garden path, only (much) later realising that they were larvae of the Garden Tiger Moth. They seemed to have so much character!

2. Helping my uncle at his allotment, and watching *a lot* (at least 20!) of Red Admiral feeding on the rotting plums from his plum tree. I was mesmorised!

3. Perusing the larval webs of Peacock and Small Tortoiseshell in the local park on the biggest patch of "stingers" I've never seen matched The same patch of stingers that I fell head-first into while performing an elaborate stunt on my bicycle. I live with the scars to this day, before anyone else mentions it

4. Accidentally uncovering a Lime Hawkmoth pupa from the base of a lime tree while retrieving a cricket ball. I lifted up a tuft of grass and found 3 more!

5. Watching in amazement as a Buff-tip Moth larval web decimated a lime tree in the local park over a matter of days.

6. Seeing my first Comma and thinking it was a knackered Small Tort.

7. Finding a silver (I kid ye not) Small Copper (ab. alba, I guess) on the local disused railway line.

8. Finding my first Large Elephant Hawkmoth larva and wondering what on earth it was!

9. Hummingbird Hawkmoths feeding on my parents' Valerium.

10. Seeing my first Gatekeeper while on a school field trip and thinking I'd found a really rare form of Meadow Brown

11. Catching a Marbled White, putting it in a jam jar, and wondering what all those little white blobs were that appeared!

Loads more ...

Cheers,

- Pete

[Rogerdodge]

Aged about 7, my best friend Malcolm and I used to patrol around my next-door neighbour's Buddlea bush looking for the buterflies that landed on it. Large Whites, Peacocks and Small Tort were common, but the occasional Painted Lady and Comma caused great excitement.
We knew what they were from the Brooke Bond tea cards that we collected avidly.
One day a huge and previously 'unrecorded' butterfly landed, and I caught it by the time homoured method of clapping the jam jar and lid together over the buttefly and buddlea inflorescence.
I cycled (3 miles) to the library, and asked the lady if she had a book on butterflies.
She pointed me in the direction of a copy of Frohawk, and I identified my Silver-washed Fritillary.
That was it - a lifetimes fascination in all things natural from one chance encounter.
Quite what paphia was doing in the wilds of West Middlesex I can't guess.
My next birthday, only a few weeks later in August, and I had my much cherished Observers Book of British Butterflies.
It had detailed instructions on how to colect, kill, set and display your specimens. From that moment on no buttterfly was safe from my 1'6d net! - what a collection I amassed of badly set butterflies - legs, antennae and even bits of wings missing, but they were mine! Simpler times indeed.
Another early memory was visiting a girlfriend who lived in Freshwater, IoW, and being distracted from some very serious snogging by swarms of Glanvilles - Sally didn't appreciate her charms being beaten into second place by some insects.
I also vividly remember my first Silver-studded Blue. I was secretary of the climbing club at school, and we hired the climbing cottage at Bosigran in north Cornwall fo a long weekend. Afer hauling myself over a superb overhang cliff climb called The Parson's Nose, I lay back on the cliff top turf, lit a fag, and then spotted my first ever S-s Bl. A wonderful moment.
Roger Harding

[Padfield]

Ah, memories...


Note species 26

And this is my childhood bedroom wall:



It's been a long obsession...

Guy

[Charles Nicol]

erm Guy... did you really glue a Purple Emperor to your bedroom wall ?

charles

[Padfield]

No Charles! I spent an entire rainy morning cutting the pictures out of a book with nail scissors and then Prittsticking them to the wall! I never finished the job, probably because it was lunchtime or something.

Butterflies are so deeply embedded in my life I just can't imagine what it's like for people who don't share the bug. We are the lucky ones. I've spent every summer day since I was seven looking for them and have more happy memories than I could possibly write here.

Guy

[Chris]

My brother and I used to patrol the neighbours buddlia too. My dad built us a "butterfly aviary" in the back garden against the wall of the house. I remember clearly the butterflies we used to find... Peacock, Painted Lady, Red Admiral, Large & Small White, Small Tortoiseshell, Holly Blue, Speckled Wood and Large Tortoiseshell! Given that I'm only 29, that would put the LT sightings at around 1986-90 in Shropshire. I'm happy to concede that we may have just excitedly misidentified small tortoiseshells... but I'm absolutely convinced of the memory.

Interestingly, my brother now thinks it odd that I haven't grown out of going to find insects at the weekend.

[Denise]

Your not alone Chris,
My family think I'm nuts wandering about over the countryside looking at "bugs".
Everyone to their own I say.

Denise

[Susie]

You and me both, Denise! The kids think their mum is barking, and I am not going to say they are wrong.

My earliest memory of butterflies is a buddleia we had by the kitchen back door; it was always covered in butterflies (although my memories of this probably only really span the course of one summer). I don't think I have every seen anything similar since as far as butterfly numbers go.

[Lynn]

Hi Folks I am so enjoying reading your replies and having the pleasure of sharing your memories. Loved Guy's wall! I know someone "a grown-up" who has a car roof ceiling decorated in similar manner.

[Jack Harrison]

Here's one I still have that I stuck a pin through in August 1947. It is no more tatty today than when I caught it in our garden over 60 years ago.

Location is very surprising. Gorleston (part of Great Yarmouth) now officially in Norfolk although in VC 25 East Suffolk. I suspect it was a vagrant as I never came across them again in that part of East Anglia.

I am in fact writing some butterfly memories for posterity. The opening sentences read:

"Mum and I were having a picnic in the garden of our bungalow the outskirts of Great Yarmouth in Norfolk. It was a lovely late summer afternoon in 1945; I was not yet eight years old. A Peacock flew through the garden, Mum grabbed the blanket we were sitting on, held it out wide and chased the butterfly into the house."

Jack

[Padfield]

Mendel and Piotrowski, in the Butterflies of Suffolk, describe the decline of silver-washed fritillary in Suffolk and note there were probably no sightings between 1910 and 1937. The species was then reintroduced to Barking Woods with stock from the New Forest but seems in addition to have recovered on its own. They write:

"During the 1940s and 50s the species seems to have become widespread in Suffolk again. How much this was due to the introduction to the Barking Woods we shall never know, but it is unlikely that even such a mobile species as the silver-washed fritillary could have reached... [then they list the spread of places it was recorded] ... By the late 1950s the species was extremely scarce again and reports since that time have not been confirmed."

Your childhood coincided with an interesting period for SSW in Suffolk, Jack!

Guy